The Geography Blog focusing on all things geography: human, physical, technical, space, news, and geopolitics. Also known as Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!
Written by a former National Geographic employee who also proudly served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Australia Wants to Censor the Internet

The Commonwealth of Australia may join the People's Republic of China and other countries with mandatory censoring of the internet. The government has declared no one can opt out of the censorship. Originally the plan was thought-up by social conservatives who wanted to block pornography but the ruling center-left Labour Party expanded the censorship to "controversial subjects." As such, the Labour Party is realizing that sometimes progressivism and classical liberalism (freedom of speech) do not go hand and hand.

Today is a information era driven by the free access of information. Sure, a civil society needs horizontal controls and times of war call for information wars but this style of censorship is a slippery slope. One never knows when a "controversial subject" will be one that hurts the government's political image.